Shattered Ascension Rulebook

version 39, 2024-04-06

By Cyrusa
Email for feedback: cyrusa+ti3 (at) crans.org

Welcome to the Shattered Ascension rulebook. Here you will find all the rules of Shattered Ascension. This rulebook is standalone and does not require any vanilla Twilight Imperium 3 rulebook. You will find more information about Shattered Ascension on our website.

To get a url pointing to a specific section of this rulebook (to give to a friend for example), hover over a title, click on the white link icon that will pop up on its left, and copy the new url of the webpage. This also works for internal links, simply click on them and copy the new url of the webpage.

Ground Rules

Contradictions
If a wording would contradict with another (for example saying you can do something that another wording prevents), then either it explicitly refers to the other wording it is contradicting with, in which case it takes precedence, or it does not, in which case the default precedence order is:
Action Cards > Political Cards > Racial Upgrade > Racial Abilities > Technologies > Rules from this rulebook

Compliance
A player subject to negative effects (for example discard 3 Trade Goods) must fulfil them as far as able (if she only has 2 Trade Goods, she must discard them).

Dice
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all dice mentioned in this rulebook are 10-sided dice going from 1 to 10.

Overview

In a game of Twilight Imperium, 2 to 8 players take the role of varied great races fighting for supremacy in the galaxy after the ruling Lazax Empire has fallen. The game is played over several Rounds, during which players strive to claim Objectives in order to score Victory Points. The first player to reach a predetermined number of Victory Points is declared the winner and the new Empress of the Galaxy.

Content

Components

ComponentsPicture

Setup

Note: players may sit now, but will likely have to change seat later during the setup.

Setup Sequence

  1. Building the Galaxy
  2. Table Setup
  3. Victory Point Goal
  4. Game Options
  5. Secret Objectives
  6. Race Picking
  7. Home System Location Bidding OR Galaxy Building
  8. Seating Reorganisation
  9. Speaker Token Bidding
  10. Starting Trade Goods Normalisation
  11. Orienting the Rotation Cycler
  12. Revealing Objectives
  13. Finalising Setup

1) Building the Galaxy

Choose either:

2) Table Setup

Find an area of the table that is convenient for all players to reach. Designate this space the common play area, and populate it with the following:

Inside this common play area, designate a space that will be used as the Twilight Council.

3) Victory Point Goal

Decide on the number of Victory Points required to win. The recommended values are:

4) Game Options

Decide on the game options to include:

Recommended: None.

5) Secret Objectives

Deal two Secret Objective cards to each player. They will have to discard one of them later.

6) Race Picking

  1. Have each player roll a die. The highest-rolling player (break ties by additional rolls) is the first player.
  2. Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player may either choose any available race to play or pass. The remaining races form the pool of random races.
  3. All players without a race are secretly dealt a random race from the pool. They may either keep it, or reshuffle it into the pool (without revealing it).
  4. Conduct the above step a second time.
  5. All player without a race are publicly dealt a random race from the pool, that they must play for this game.

7) Home System Location Bidding OR Galaxy Building

Note: The Trade Goods that are bid at this step are taken from the reserve, not from the players.

Pre-Set Map

If you chose a pre-set map, then players will now bid on the Home System location they wish to start on.

The first player places a flag (or another item if her race is not public) along with a bid of Trade Goods (0 is allowed) on any Home System Location. Then, going clockwise (and looping), each player not currently holding a bid on a Home System either places a bid on a new Home System or overbid another player. This continues until all players hold a bid on a Home System location.

All players then receive as many Trade Goods as the difference between the highest bid and their own bid.

Star by Star Map

If you chose to build the map using the Star by Star procedure, now is the time to do it.

Players may now change seat in order to be aligned with their Home System location.

8) Seating Reorganisation (Only for non-Online games)

Players may change seat in order to be aligned with their Home System location.

9) Speaker Token Bidding

Note: The Trade Goods that are bid at this step are taken from the reserve, not from the players.

The player on the right of the first player places a bid of Trade Goods (0 is allowed) on the Speaker Token. Then, going counter-clockwise (and looping), each player may either withdraw from the bidding or overbid. The winner gains the Speaker Token. The other players receive as many Trade Goods as the winning bid.

10) Starting Trade Goods Normalization

All players now gain or lose the same number of Trade Goods such that the player with the lowest amount has exactly 1 Trade Good.

11) Orienting the Rotation Cycler

The player holding the Speaker Token may now set the orientation of the Rotation Cycler as she wishes.

12) Revealing Objectives

Reveal:

13) Finalising Setup

14) Play!

Start the first Round.

Round

Shattered Ascension is played over a consecutive number of Rounds. Each Round is split into three phases: The Strategy Phase where players place a Political Card in the Twilight Council as their agenda and pick their Strategy Card for the Round, the Action Phase, where players use their Strategy Cards, move their ships, conquer planets and build units, and the Status Phase, where the board is cleaned up and players can gain Victory Points by claiming Objectives. If no player is declared winner at the end of a Round, another Round starts.

Strategy Phase

Strategy Phase sequence:

  1. Agenda
  2. Strategy Card Picking

1) Agenda

Each player must place face down a Political Card from her hand in the Twilight Council, and mark it with one of her flags. Political Cards placed in the Twilight Council zone in this manner are called Agendas. If the Assembly Strategy Card is played this round, the Agendas to be voted on will be chosen among these cards.
After all players have placed their Agenda, they are revealed and the game goes on.

Additional rules:

2) Strategy Card Picking

In rotation order, each player must pick one of the available Strategy Cards (that was not already picked by another player). They will be able to use them during the upcoming Action Phase. All 9 Strategy Cards are available on our website.

After that, place a Bonus Counter on each of the unpicked Strategy Cards. These Bonus Counters stack from one Round to the next, and increase the value of the Strategy Cards they are on: when a player picks a Strategy Card, she converts each Bonus Counter on it into either a Command Counter or a Trade Goods that she adds to her race sheet.

Action Phase

For those coming from Twilight Imperium 3, there is no Transfer Action in Shattered Ascension. If you cannot live without it, you can look into the Simultaneous Tactical Action System game option.

Content:

During the Action Phase, each player will take an Action, that can be either a Strategic Action, a Tactical Action, or Passing. The order in which players can take their Action is given by their initiative, the player with the lowest initiative being the first to take an Action.
This sequence (each player taking an Action) is repeated until all players have Passed, at which point the Action Phase ends and the Status Phase begins.

Initiative
The initiative of a player is the number printed on her Strategy Card.

Active Player
A player currently taking an Action is called the active player.

“as an action”
Some effects in the game are used “as an action”. This means that using such effects is done instead of taking an Action during the Action Phase.

Strategic Action

A Strategic Action corresponds to playing a Strategy Card. When a player performs a Strategic Action, she executes the Primary Ability of her Strategy Card, then other players, following the order defined by the Rotation Cycler (starting with either the left or right neighbour of the active player, depending on the orientation of the Rotation Cycler), may choose to execute the Secondary Ability of the card.
After that the used Strategy Card is flipped on its inactive side, and may not be used again this Round.

Important: When performing a Strategic Action, the active player may not execute the Secondary Ability of the Strategy Card she is playing.

Passing

A player performs this action when she does not want to perform any other action for the rest of this Action Phase. When it would be the turn of a player that passed, simply skip her. If all players have passed, the Action Phase ends and the Status Phase starts.

Important: A player may not pass before having used her Strategy Card through a Strategic Action.
Note: A player that passed may still execute the Secondary Abilities of Strategy Cards played after she passed.

Tactical Action

All the ship movements, planetary conquests, unit productions and much more will happen during Tactical Actions.
After declaring a Tactical Action, a player must follow the steps of the Activation Sequence described below. With the exception of the first one, each of these steps is only resolved if necessary.
In this section “you” refers to the active player.

The Activation Sequence:

  1. System Activation
  2. Movement
  3. Space Cannons Abilities
  4. Space Battle
  5. Planetary Landings
  6. Invasion Combats
  7. Production

Activated System
A System is considered activated by a player when it contains a Command Counter from that player, preventing her units in it from acting again until the Command Counter is removed. However, most effects simply refer to activated and unactivated Systems without specifying any player, in which case the player is the one using the effect.

Allegiances
From the perspective of a given player:

Most effects using these terms do not specify which player they use the perspective of. In these cases, the player is the one using the effect.

1) System Activation

Activate a System by placing a Command Counter from the Command Pool area of your Race Sheet in it. This system is now the active System for the rest of this Tactical Action.

For Tactical Actions, you may not activate a System that already contains one of your Command Counters, but you may activate a System that contains Command Counters of other players.
In fact, as a general rule, you can ignore Command Counters belonging to other players on the galaxy.

2) Movement

During this step, you may move some of your ships from unactivated Systems to the active system.

The ships movement step consists in two parts:

A) Plotting Trajectories

You may not move ships present in activated Systems, unless they are in the active System. For each ship you want to move, you have to plot a legal trajectory for it. A legal trajectory is a chain of adjacent Systems starting with the System containing the ship and ending with the active System. It must also satisfy the following conditions:

  • No System of the trajectory (except the active System) may contain enemy ships. (e.g. ships may not move through Systems containing enemy ships)
  • The ship must have a sufficient movement value to follow the trajectory. By default, moving from a System to an adjacent System costs 1 movement. For example, a ship with a movement value of 1 can only move in adjacent Systems.

Notes:

  • A ship does not need to take the shortest trajectory towards its final destination.
  • Trajectories that start and end in the active System without leaving it are allowed, and constitute a movement.

B) Executing movements

One by one and in the order of your choice, move each ship according to their trajectory.

3) Space Cannons Abilities

During this step, units with the Space Cannon (n) ability that are in the active System may fire at a fleet in the active System. There are two possibilities:

Starting with the active player and following the rotation cycler, players may in turn shoot with some or all of their units with Space Cannon

When a unit with Space Cannon (n) fires, it performs n combat rolls. Hits must be assigned to ships of the targeted fleet by the fleet’s owner.

4) Space Battle

At this step, if there are ships controlled by two different players in the active System, a Space Battle must be resolved.
In this Space Battle, the active player is the attacker, while the other player is the defender. For complete rules about how to resolve a Space Battle, see the Space Battle section.

5) Planetary Landings

The Planetary Landings step consists in two parts:

A) Planetary landings

The active player may land ground units, PDSs and Leaders currently carried by her ships in the active System on planets in the same System. PDSs and Leaders landing on non-friendly planets must be accompanied by at least one ground unit.

B) Bombardment assignment

The active player may assign some of her ships in the active System with the Bombardment ability to the non-friendly planets of this System, in order to be able to bombard them during the 6) Invasion Combats step of this Tactical Action.

Definition: An Invasion is a planetary landing on either a neutral or enemy planet.

6) Invasion Combat

Until all planets that had units or Leaders landed on them or ships assigned to bombard them in the active System have been resolved, the active player chooses an unresolved planet and resolves it according to the following:

Note: In what follows, “landed” ground units, PDSs and Leaders refer to the ground units, PDSs and Leaders that were landed on the planet being resolved.

Planetary Landing Resolution:

7) Production

Note: All the resources that the active player decides to spend during this step are added up and spent at the same time at the end of the step. The total amount of resources that must be spent is rounded up.

The Production step consists in three parts, that must be resolved in the following order:

A) Deploy Space Mines

See the Deploy Space Mines ability.

B) Produce units

The active player may produce units at each of her units with the Produce Units (n) ability in the active System, with a production capacity of n. In most cases, units will be produced by Space Docks.

Producing units
When producing units, any combination of units may be produced provided the following three limitations are respected and they can be placed in the System (see placing produced units):

  • Production Capacity: Each unit has a production capacity cost, the total production capacity cost of the produced units may not exceed the production capacity of the unit producing them.
  • Resource Cost: Each unit has a resource cost. The player producing units must spend the required amount of resources. If multiple units produce units at the same time, the resource costs can be summed up and paid at the same time.
  • Blockade:
    No ships may be produced in a System already containing enemy ships.

Placing produced units
After units have been produced, they must be placed according to the following rules. The producer refers to the unit that produced them:

  • Ships are placed in the space of the System containing the producer
  • If the producer is on a planet (or is a planet in some cases), then all produced units with the Planet-based trait (ground units and PDSs) must be placed on the planet. Else, they may be distributed in the System among friendly planets and friendly units with sufficient capacity to carry them.

Space Docks
Space Docks cannot be produced using the Produce Units (n) ability. They have their own specific construction process (see step C just after).

C) Build Space Docks

The active player may build Space Docks on some of the planets in the active System. A Space Dock may only be built on a planet that she has controlled since the beginning of the Round, and that does not already contain a Space Dock. Newly built Space Docks are placed exhausted (flipped) and may thus not produce units until they are refreshed (usually during the Status Phase).

Status Phase

Change from base SA (click to expand) Added a dedicated "Scuttle units and break Trade Agreements" step near the end of the sequence. The scuttle unit part is there so that this option visually appear in the Status Phase sequence. As for the Trade Agreement part, the reasoning is as follows: In the base SA, Trade Agreements could be broken at any time during the Status Phase. But it was annoying and a bit immersion breaking to see people breaking low value Trade Agreements to get 1 Trade Good and buy a racial upgrades. That is why I created this dedicated Status Phase step, located after the Racial Upgrades unlocks.

After the Strategy Phase and the Action Phase comes the Status Phase. During this phase, players claim objectives granting them Victory Points, unlock Racial Upgrades, and more generally “clean up the table” and prepare the game for the next Round.

Status Phase sequence:

  1. Claim Objectives
  2. Progression Feedback
  3. Produce Trade Goods (2:1)
  4. Unlock Racial Upgrades
  5. Refresh Planets
  6. Receive 1 Action Card, 1 Political Card and 2 Command Counters
  7. Reallocate Command Counters and Fleet Supply Upkeep
  8. Scuttle units and break Trade Agreements
  9. Unactivate Systems, repair units, return agendas and Strategy Cards, refresh Space Docks

1) Claim Objectives

During this step, players simultaneously claim objectives to gain Victory Points. After this is done, the game ends if one or more players possess enough Victory Points (see winning the game).

Claiming an Objective
In order to claim an objective, a player must satisfy the requirements written on it, and not have already claimed it in the past (whether other players have already claimed it or not does not matter). The player then places one of her flags on the objective, and advances her flag on the Victory Point Track by the number of Victory Points indicated on the objective.

Claiming Limit
During a Claim Objectives step, a player:

Types of objectives

ObjectivesBack

Stage I Public Objectives (Yellow)
The standard type of objective.

Stage II Public Objectives (Blue)
Stage II Public Ob jectives are harder Objectives that grant more Victory Points than Stage I ones. However, a player may only claim a Stage II Public Objective if the number of revealed Stage I Public Objectives is equal to or higher than the number of Victory Point required to win the game.

Preliminary Objectives (Grey)
At the end of a Round in which a Preliminary Objective has been claimed by at least one player, it becomes unclaimable by all other players for the rest of the game.

Secret Objectives (Red)
When claiming a Secret Objective, a player must reveal it and show she indeed meets its requirements. If she does not meet them, the Secret Objective is discarded. If she does, it is placed with the other objective cards as a reminder.
In addition, players may reveal their Secret Objective at any time to discard it.

Special Objectives (Green)
There are three kinds of Special Objectives:

Special Objectives differ from the other kinds of objective in that if a player that has claimed one of them stop meeting its requirements, her claim on the Special Objective is lost instantly: she must remove her flag from the objective card and loses the associated Victory Points immediately. This does not prevent her from claiming this objective again later in the game.

Note: Losing Victory Points
Regardless of effects that would make players lose Victory Points, a player may not have less Victory Points than the number of Special Objectives she currently claims. Players may not have less Victory points than 0.

Winning the game

After all players have finished claiming objectives, if at least one of them has the required amount of Victory Point (or more) that was decided at the start of the game, the game ends.
Whoever has the most Victory Points at that time is declared winner. If two or more players have the same number of Victory Points, ties are broken in favour of the one controlling the most planets outside of her Home System. If there is still a tie, tied players share the victory.

After a victory, you can read this text out loud:
“She has gained the power needed to claim the for too long empty Imperial Throne of Mecatol Rex. The Winnaran Custodians will step aside for their new Empress, whose destiny is to lead the galaxy to a new age of prosperity, peace and enlightenment.”

Note: It is possible for a player to win the game outside of the Status Phase (some effects grant Victory Points during the Action Phase). If a player reaches the required amount of Victory Points at any time outside of the Status Phase, the game ends immediately and a victor is determined following the same procedure as above.

2) Progression Feedback to Victory Point Leader

The player with the most Victory Points gains as many Trade Goods as her lead in Victory Points lead over the player with the second-most Victory Points.

3) Produce Trade Goods (2:1)

Starting with the Speaker and following the Rotation Cycler, each player may spend resources to receive one Trade Good for each two resources spent.

4) Unlock Racial Upgrades

Starting with the Speaker and following the Rotation Cycler, each player may now unlock some of her Racial Upgrades by spending resources.

The cost of unlocking a Racial Upgrades is computed as follows:

Multiple Racial Upgrades can be unlocked at the same time, but they must be unlocked one after the other.

5) Refresh Planets

Starting with the Speaker, and following the Rotation Cycler, each player refreshes her planets, by turning the corresponding planet cards upright.

At this step, players may choose not to refresh some of their planets to instead do one of the following:

6) Receive 1 Action Card, 1 Political Card and 2 Command Counters

Starting with the Speaker and following the Rotation Cycler, each player draws one Action Card, one Political Card, and receives two Command Counters.

7) Reallocate Command Counters and Fleet Supply Upkeep

Reallocate Command Counters
Starting with the Speaker and following the Rotation Cycler, each player may redistribute her Command Counters between the Command Pool, Fleet Supply and Strategy Allocation areas of her race sheet.

Fleet Supply Upkeep
Players must pay 1 resource for each Command Counter in their Fleet Supply beyond 8. Command Counters that are not paid for are lost. For example, a player with 10 Command Counter in her Fleet Supply must pay 2 resources.

8) Scuttle units and break Trade Agreements

Starting with the Speaker and following the Rotation Cycler, players may scuttle some of their units on the board by placing them in reinforcements.

9) Unactivate Systems, repair units, return agendas and Strategy Cards, refresh Space Docks

The end of the Status Phase marks the end of the Round. If no player has won the game yet, a new Round begins.

Space Battle

This section details how to resolve Space Battles. Space Battles are ships versus ships engagements that occur when a player moves ships into a system containing enemy ships. The player that moved ships is the attacker, while the other player is the defender.

A Space Battle consists of a Pre-Combat phase, followed by a succession of Combat Rounds that continues as long as both players have ships in the System the Space Battle takes place in.

Space Battle sequence:

  1. Pre-Combat
    1. Anti-Fighter Barrage
    2. Other Pre-Combat Effects
  2. Space Battle Combat Round (repeat until the Space Battle ends)
    1. Conduct Combat Rolls
    2. Assign Hits
    3. Conduct Retreat

Here are a few definitions that will be used in the following:

Combat Roll :
The act of rolling a die and checking if its result is greater or equal to a unit’s combat value. If it is, a hit is scored by the owner of the unit.

Assigning a hit :
When her opponent scores a hit during a Space Battle or Invasion Combat, a player must assign it to one of her units involved in the Space Battle or Invasion Combat (she chooses which unit), if able. Each unit may only be assigned at most one hit, and doing so destroys the unit.
Hits scored by the opponent that were not ignored or cancelled are said to be inflicted by the opponent, even if they cannot be assigned (for example if more hits than the number of units present were scored).

End of a Space Battle:
If before a Combat Round would begin, either the attacker or the defender does not have ships in the System of the Space Battle, the Space Battle ends. If one player still has ships in the System at this point, she is declared the winner of the Space Battle.

1) Pre-Combat

During this phase, all pre-combat effects are resolved.

1.a) Anti-Fighter Barrages

First both sides use the Anti-Fighter Barrage abilities of their involved ships. The combat rolls are performed simultaneously, then the attacker must assign to her Fighters the hits scored by the defender, before the defender does the same with the hits scored by the attacker (see assigning a hit).

1.b) Other Pre-Combat effects

After the Anti-Fighter Barrages, all other pre-combat effects are resolved. All combat rolls granted by these effects are performed simultaneously, then the attacker assigns to her ships the hits scored by the defender, before the defender does the same with the hits scored by the attacker (see assigning a hit).

2) Space Battle Combat Round

2.a) Conduct Combat Rolls

Each ship in the System of the Space Battle performs as many combat rolls as its combat dice characteristic. All dice are rolled simultaneously.

2.b) Assign Hits

First, the attacker must assign to her ships the hits scored by the defender. Then the defender does the same with the hits scored by the attacker.

2.c) Conduct Retreat

Skip this step if either side has no remaining ships in the System.

The sequence goes as follows:

In order to conduct (or announce) a retreat, a player must choose a destination system adjacent to the system of the Space Battle that does not contain enemy ships. When conducting the retreat, the player must move her fleet (which can pick up units with the Space Cargo trait like Fighters, but not other units) to the chosen system and activate it from reinforcements.
Ships that may not perform this movement are considered destroyed by the other player instead.

Extra Cost: If the system of the Space Battle is activated by the player, and the destination system is not (see figure below), then the player must spend a Command Counter from Strategy Allocation to retreat. If she cannot pay, she may not announce or conduct that retreat.

Invasion Combats

This section details how to resolve Invasion Combats. Invasion Combats are battles on planets, that occur when a player lands ground units on an enemy planet that contains ground units and/or PDSs. The player that landed ground units is the attacker, the other player is the defender.

Like Space Battles, Invasion Combats consist of a Pre-Combat phase, followed by a succession of Combat Rounds that continues as long as both players have ground units on the planet the Invasion Combat is taking place.

Invasion Combat sequence:

  1. Pre-Combat
    1. Bombardment
    2. Invasion Defence
  2. Invasion Combat Combat Round (repeat until the Invasion Combat ends)
    1. Perform Combat Rolls
    2. Assign Hits

End of an Invasion Combat:
If before a Combat Round would begin, either the attacker or the defender does not have ground units on the planet the Invasion Combat is taking place, the Invasion Combat ends:

1) Pre-Combat

1.a) Bombardment

Ships with the bombardment (n) ability that have been assigned to bombard this planet in the previous Planetary Landing step bombard it.
Each bombarding ship performs n combat rolls. Sum up the total number of hits scored across all ships. The result is the number of hits the defender must assign to her ground units on the planet.

Bombarding to neutrality:
If the defender is unable to assign all the bombardment hits the planet received (because she did not have enough ground units), the planet turns neutral. The bombarding player may choose to omit this effect.

1.b) Invasion Defence

The units with the Invasion Defence (n) ability defending the planet may perform n combat rolls. The attacker then assigns these hits to the attacking ground units.

2) Invasion Combat Combat Round

2.a) Perform Combat Rolls

Each ground unit on the planet performs as many Combat Rolls as its Combat Dice characteristic. All dice are rolled simultaneously.

2.b) Assign Hits

First, the attacker must assign to her ground unit the hits scored by the defender. Then the defender does the same with the hits scored by the attacker.

Systems

The hexagonal tiles that make up the galaxy map are called Systems.

Content:

Generalities Regarding Systems

Adjoining / Adjacent

Distance Between Systems

A System that is adjacent to another is 1 space away from this System.
When computing the distance between two Systems, consider the shortest chain of adjacent Systems going from one System to the other.

Control of a System

A player controls a System if she has at least one ship in it and controls all of its planets.

Home Systems (Yellow Borders)

HomeSystem

Each player will start the game in the Home System of her race, containing her starting units and planets. By extension, the “Home System of a player” is the Home System of her race.

Special rules:

Special Systems (Red Borders)

Content:

Asteroid Field

Ion Storm

Nebula

Supernova

Gravity Rift

Here is a diagram of the movement costs when moving through a Gravity Rift: Gravity Rift Movement Bonus

Regular Systems

A Regular System is any System that is neither a Home System nor a Special System. Usually, the majority of the Systems of a galaxy are Regular Systems.

Planetary Systems

RegularSystem

A Planetary System is any System that contains at least one planet.

Void Systems

VoidSystem

A Void System is any Regular Systems that does not contain any planet or Wormhole.

Planets

Planets

Each planet has a resource value (the number on a green background) and an influence value (the number on a red background). Planets may also feature a number of Technology Specialties (red/green/blue/yellow technology symbols), and a Refresh Ability (symbol depending on the actual refresh ability).

Generalities Regarding Planets

Planet Card

PlanetCard

Each planet has an associated planet card. When a player takes control of a planet, she takes the corresponding planet card. She release the card when losing control of the planet.

Planet Control

Planets are usually acquired by landing ground units on them during the Planetary Landing step of a Tactical Action, although there are other ways. When a player acquires a planet, the planet is received exhausted (and the planet card is rotated to indicate this fact).

A player does not need to keep ground units on a planet to retain control of it. If no units remain on a controlled planet, its controller must place a flag to indicate she still controls the planet.

Refreshed and Exhausted states

Planets can exist in two states: refreshed and exhausted. When a planet is refreshed, its planet card is upright, and its controller may use it to for example pay the production cost of some units. When a planet is exhausted, its planet card is rotated, and its controller does not get any benefit from it until it is refreshed (which usually happens during the Status Phase).

“Empty Planet”

A planet is “empty” if it contains no units or Leaders.

Technology Specialties

TechnologySpecialties

Technology Specialties represent a certain local knowledge or a natural resource important to a specific research field.
Each Technology Specialty on a refreshed planet reduces by 1 (down to a minimum of 0) the cost of purchasing a Technology of the same colour (usually via the Secondary Ability of the Technology Strategy Card), for the controller of the planet.

Refresh Abilities

RefreshAbilities

A Refresh Ability is indicated by a symbol on the right of a planet’s influence value, and is detailed on the associated planet card.
Refresh Abilities can be used during the Refresh Planets step of the Status Phase, by not refreshing the planet.

Facilities

Facilities

Facilities can be built on planets to increase their resource or influence value.
There are two types of Facilities: Colonies and Refineries. A Colony increases the influence value of the planet it is on by 1, while a Refinery does the same for the resource value.

Facilities are not built for resources. Instead, players may place Facilities on their planets instead of normally refreshing them during the Refresh Planets step of the Status Phase. This is not possible on Home System planets, Trade Stations and planets already containing a Facility.

Once built, place the Facility card under the planet card, with the bottom edge sticking out to display the +1 in either resource or influence.

When a player takes control of a planet containing Facilities, she may destroy some of them. Facilities that are not destroyed stay on the planet.

Note: Facilities are NOT units.

“Turning Neutral”

When a planet “turns neutral” (because of a game effect), all units on it are destroyed, the owner of the planet loses control of it and it becomes neutral.

Trade Stations

TradeStation

Trade Stations are a specific type of planets, with the following special rules:

Other Board Elements

Wormholes

Wormhole

Wormholes are spatial anomalies that connect distant areas of space.

Two Systems containing Wormholes of the same type are considered adjacent for all purposes.

Flippable Wormhole tokens

FlippableWormhole

Flippable Wormhole Tokens have a different Wormhole type printed on each side. At the end of an action in which at least one ship moved through such Wormhole from the System containing the Wormhole to another System (and only in this direction), the token is flipped, changing the type of the Wormhole.

Stable Wormhole tokens

Stable Wormhole Tokens have a single type of Wormhole printed on each side. As opposed to their flippable cousins, they do not flip.

Stable Wormholes

A Wormhole is said to be a Stable Wormhole if it was present in the galaxy at the start of the game and is not a Flippable Wormhole. (i.e. Stable Wormholes are Wormholes printed on tiles and Stable Wormhole Tokens)

Border Tokens

Border Tokens are placed on the tile edges between two Systems:

Asteroid Belts

AsteroidBelt

Ion Spheres

IonSphere

Standing Grav-Waves

StandingGravWave

Collapsed Space-Times

CollapsedSpaceTime

Space Mines

SpaceMine

Artifacts

Artefacts

There are eight Artifact tokens. Four of them harbor technology colors and are actual Artifacts, while the other four have Trade Goods symbols and are called Dummy Artifacts.

Artifacts may exist on planets or in space, are placed on the galaxy when it is created and may not be moved or destroyed by players.

Controlling Artifacts

When a player takes control of a facedown Artifacts, she flips it. The Artifact will stay revealed for the rest of the game.

Dummy Artifacts

When a Dummy Artifacts is revealed, it is removed from the game and its controller receives 2 Trade Goods.

There are four Special Objective awarding Victory Points for the control of the four non-Dummy Artifacts.

Technology Cost Reduction

Artifacts reduce the cost of researching Technologies of their color by 1 (for their controller).

Worldgates

WorldGate

Worldgates are placed on some planets of the galaxy when it is created and may not be moved or destroyed by players.

When a player performs a Tactical Action in a System containing planets with Worldgates, she may, during the Planetary Landing step, move any number of her ground units, PDSs and Leaders from other planets that also contain Worldgates, in unactivated Systems, to these planets. Treat units and Leaders moved this way as if they had been normally landed on the planets.

Domain Counters

Domain Counters are counters placed on planets or in space to represent the dangers and rewards of space exploration and colonization.

DomainCounters

There are two types of Domain Counters, the Distant Suns ones have the image of a planet on their back, while the Final Frontier ones have an image of empty space on their back.

Even though the Distant Suns Domain Counters are mostly intended to be placed on planets while the Final Frontier ones are intended to be placed in space, some counters can be placed in both types of locations.

Refer to the Effects of Domain Counters annex to find the effects of all the Domain Counters.

Domain Counters on planets

Domain Counters on planets are resolved after a player lands units on them (and after all units have been landed).

Domain Counters in space

Domain Counters in space are resolved when ships end their movement in the same system (and after all ships have finished their movement). Domain Counters in space are also resolved if a player gets ships in the system through other means than movement.

Taking Control of a Planet with Domain Counters

If a player takes control of a planet without landing units on it, then all Domain Counters on it are removed from the board without being resolved.

Resolving Domain Counters

To resolve the Domain Counters at a location (planet or space), follow these steps:

Custodians of Mecatol Rex

Custodians

These two Domain Counters have a different appearance and are sometimes used on some galaxies to protect the Mecatol Rex planet from early attacks. In general, they behave exactly like their regular counterpart. One notable exception is that they prevent their planet from being annexed with the Secondary Ability of the Diplomacy Strategy Card.

Spending Resources and Influence

Throughout a game, players will need to spend resources and influence for many different purposes.

Key points:

Command Counters

Each player has a number of Command Counters. They are used for various purposes, which this section will explain. During the game, Command Counters can exist either in a player’s reinforcements, on one of the three dedicated zones of her race sheet, or in systems of the galaxy.

A System may not contain more than one Command Counter of the same player. If an effect would place another, place it back in that player’s reinforcements instead.

Whenever a player receives or gain a Command Counter, she must place it on her race sheets in one of the three following areas (she chooses which):

Command Counters may not be moved from one area to another, unless a specific effect allows it, for example the Reallocate Command Counters and Fleet Supply Upkeep step of the Status Phase.

Command Pool

The Command Counters in the Command Pool are used to perform Tactical Actions. If a player does not have any Command Counter in her Command Pool, she may not perform Tactical Actions.

Fleet Supply

Command Counters placed in Fleet Supply must be placed with the “fleet” side up.
The number of Command Counters in a player’s Fleet Supply is her Fleet Supply. A player is said to be in violation of her Fleet Supply in a given System if she has more non-Fighter ships in that System than her Fleet Supply.

It is important to note that the Fleet Supply is a constraint on the number of non-Fighter ship of fleets, not on the number of fleets. For example, a player with 3 Fleet Supply may have as many fleets as she wants (up to one per System!), but none of these fleets may contain more than 3 non-Fighter ships.

Strategy Allocation

Command Counters in the Strategy Allocation are spent to use various effects. Most notably, the Secondary Abilities of Strategy Cards often require the spending of a Command Counter from Strategy Allocation in order to be executed.

Action Cards

Throughout the game, players will come into possessions of Action Cards that they will add to their hand.

Key Points:

Twilight Council and Political Cards

Agendas refer to the Political Cards that were placed in the Twilight Council zone during the Strategy Phase.

The Twilight Council concurs as part of the Assembly (3) Strategy Card Primary Ability.
During this Primary Ability, the active player must choose a number of agendas to be voted on (see the Strategy Card), and select the order in which they will be resolved after being voted on.

Voting

  1. Each player calculates how many votes she has, by summing the influence values of all her unexhausted planets and potentially adding bonus votes granted by other effects. If a player would have 0 votes, she gets 1 vote.
  2. Players debate, threaten, lure, bribe or convince each other. Remember that no promises are binding.
  3. Players take a piece of paper and a pen, and secretly write their votes. They split their votes between the agendas and may not vote for two different outcomes of the same agenda, but they are not required to use all of their votes.
    For example, in order to place 3 votes on the FOR outcome of an agenda, a player would write: “: For 3” on her sheet. But she cannot also place votes on the against outcome of the same agenda.
  4. All vote sheets are collected and votes are tallied. Then the agendas are resolved according to the outcome that got the more votes. Finally, resolved agendas are discarded.

Ties
If multiple outcomes of the same agenda receive the same number of votes, the tie is broken by the Speaker.
Exception: an agenda that does not receive any vote is discarded without effect.

Political Cards keywords

Political Cards feature some keywords to indicate how players can vote on them and how they are resolved:

“Elect”
Political Cards with the “elect” keywords ask the player to elect someone or something (depending on the card). The subject getting the most votes will be elected.

“For or Against”
Political Cards with the “For or Against” keyword have only two outcomes: For and Against. The outcome receiving the most votes will be resolved.

“Law”
Political Cards with the “Law” keyword represent permanent changes and will stay active after they were voted on.
Exception: A “For or Against” “Law” of which the Against outcome is resolved does not stay active and is discarded.

Other Rules for Political Cards

Voice of the Council

After the agendas being voted on and their resolution order have been chosen, any player may spend 1 Command Counter from Strategy Allocation to include the Voice of the Council Special Objective to the agendas being voted on. If no player choose to do so, the game continues.
Voice of the Council is treated as a Political Card with the “elect player” keyword for the duration of the vote (it stops being treated as a Political Card after being resolved). It will always be resolved after the other agendas have been resolved. The player elected as voice of the council now qualifies for the corresponding objective, until another player is elected voice of the council in a later election.

Note: As for all the Special Objectives (green), Voice of the Council is not claimed instantly after a player qualifies for it.

Technologies

Technologies represent scientific advances the players can acquire (research) throughout the game to strengthen the potential of their race. Technologies are presented in a Technology Tree and can be of one of these four colors, corresponding to four technological domains:

Acquisition of Technologies

Acquisition
Technologies are mostly acquired through the Technology Strategy Card (7). When a player acquires a Technology, she places one of her flags on the corresponding Technology on the Technology Tree and benefit from its effects.

Prerequisites
Some Technologies have other Technologies as prerequisites. This is indicated on the Technology Tree by lines: when two Technologies are connected by a line, the topmost Technology is a prerequisite of the other one. A player cannot acquire a Technology that has prerequisites without having acquired at least one of its prerequisites.
Exception: When a ‘+’ symbol in a red circle is present, both prerequisites are required.

Purchases and Discounts
Some effects allow players to “purchase” Technology for a given resource price. This simply means the player may pay the required amount of resources to acquire a Technology.
This cost is reduced by 1 if the player controls the Artifact of the same color than the purchased Technology, and by 1 for each Technology Specialty of the same color than the purchased Technology present on refreshed planets the player controls.

“You may use the effects of …”

Some effects allow players to “use the effects of” some Technologies. This means that even though they may not have a particular Technology, they are allowed to benefit from its effects. However, they are not considered as having this Technology (for example for the purpose of Objectives, or prerequisites), and even if they do have this Technology, they cannot benefit from its effects twice.

Racial Upgrades

Racial Upgrades are race-specific bonuses and abilities that can be unlocked during the game at the Unlock Racial Upgrades step of the Status Phase.

Trade Goods

When a player receives Trade Goods, she places them into the Trade Good Area of her race sheet. Whenever she spends resources or influence, she can decide to spend some of her Trade Goods as substitutes for one resource or influence each. For example if she wants to spend five resources, she can exhaust Planets for three resources and spend two Trade Goods.
Spent Trade Goods are returned to the common play area.

Players are allowed to give other players Trade Goods from their Trade Good Area at any time. This makes Trade Goods a flexible currency with which to bribe, pay, or assist other players economically.

Trade Contracts and Trade Agreements

Content:

Trade Contracts

TradeContract

Each race has two Trade Contracts, with numerical values printed on one of the sides (the Trade Agreement side). At the beginning of the game, players place these cards face down in their playing area (with the Trade Agreement side facing the table).

Opening Trade Agreements

Some effects (most notably the Primary Ability of the Trade Strategy Card (5)) allow players to open Trade Agreements. When two players want to open a Trade Agreement with each other, they exchange one of their Trade Contracts and flip them (so the Trade Agreement sides are up).
Restriction: two players may not have more than one Trade Agreements with each other at the same time.

Difference between “Trade Contract” and “Trade Agreement”

The “Trade Contracts” of a race are the cards bearing its symbol, while its “Trade Agreements” are the Trade Contracts of other races it received when opening Trade Agreements with them.

Receiving Trade Goods from Trade Agreements

Various effects (most notably the Special Ability of the Trade Strategy Card (5)) “place Trade Goods on active Trade Agreements”. When this happens, players place, on their Trade Agreements, a number of Trade Goods equal to the numerical values of these Trade Agreements.
Various effects (most notably the Primary and Secondary Ability of the Trade Strategy Card (5)) allow players to collect the Trade Goods present on their Trade Agreements and place them in their Trade Goods Area.

Breaking Trade Agreements

There are multiple ways a Trade Agreement can be broken. The most common ones are:

When a Trade Agreement is broken, the two players automatically collect some of the Trade Goods present on their Trade Agreements (the rest are discarded), then they flip the cards so that the Trade Agreement sides face the table and finally give the card back to their former trade partner.

How many Trade Goods players collect depends on how the Trade Agreement was broken:

Self-Trading

While normally forbidden, some effects allow players to self-trade some of their Trade Contracts. When self-trading a Trade Contract, simply flip it to show the Trade Agreement side and treat it as a Trade Agreement opened with yourself.

Trading Example

Components Limitations

All components, except those listed below, are unlimited. Players can use any reasonable objects to replace them if they would run out.
Supplement cardboard tokens exist for Fighters and Ground Forces.

Limited components:

If a player goes over one of these limits, she must immediately scuttle the units in excess.

Units

Units Characteristics

Categories

Some effects will refer to categories of units instead of specific unit types. Any unit in a category is affected by effects affecting its category.

Movement Value

This characteristic determines the maximum number of systems the unit can move in a single movement.
More details on units movement can be found in the Ships Movement step of the Tactical Action.

Resource Cost and Production Capacity Cost

These characteristics determine the cost of producing the unit.
More details on how units are produced can be found in the Production step of the Tactical Action.

Combat Dice

This characteristic determines the number of Combat Rolls the unit performs during the combat rounds of Space Battles (if the unit is a ship) or Invasion Combats (if it is a ground unit).

Important: If, after all modifiers have been taken into account, a unit would have zero or less Combat Dice, it is considered as having one Combat Dice instead.
More details on Space Battles and Invasion Combats can be found in the relevant sections.

Combat Value

When a unit performs a Combat Roll, the result of the die is compared to its Combat Value. If the result is higher or equal to the Combat Value, a hit is scored.
More details on Space Battles and Invasion Combats can be found in the relevant sections.

Abilities

Abilities give units unique ways of interacting with the game, like being able to produce other units or being tougher to destroy. Abilities are described in the Unit Abilities section.

Traits

Traits define how units operate and the specific constraints that apply to them.

Unit Categories

Ship

Ships can move by themselves in the galaxy and engage in Space Battles.

Units in this category:

Non-Fighter Ship

A specific subset of ships.

Units in this category:

Ground Units

The role of these units is to take control of and defend planets, by engaging in Invasion Combats.

Units in this category:

Installation

These units represent buildings that improve planets in various ways, like protecting them, producing units and improving their resource and influence value.

Units in this category:

Units List

Flagship

Flagship
Note: Each race has a Flagship card specifying the particularities of its Flagship.

War Sun

Warsun

Dreadnought

Dreadnought

Carrier

Carrier

Cruiser

Cruiser

Destroyer

Destroyer

Fighter

Fighter FighterToken

Armor (A.k.a. Mechanised Units)

Change from base SA (click to expand) Renamed "Armor (MU)" into simply "Armor". The "(MU)" marks that they used to be called "Mechanised Units", but I don't think there is a point in making the wordings heavier just to keep this around.

Shock Troop

ShockTroop ShockTroopToken

Ground Force

GroundForce GroundForceToken

PDS (Planetary Defence System)

PDS

Space Dock

SpaceDock

Unit Abilities

This section details the different abilities units can have.

Important:
When a unit receives a numbered ability it already has, the two numbers are summed up. For example, a unit with the Planetary Shield (1) ability receiving the Planetary Shield (1) ability now has the Planetary Shield (2) ability.

Anti-Fighter Barrage (n)

Units with this ability perform n Combat Rolls during the Anti-Fighter Barrage step of the Space Battle sequence, that can only be assigned by the opponent to Fighters.

Bombardment (n)

This ability allows ships that have it to bombard enemy planets. The bombardment process is described in details in the Bombardment step of the Invasion Combat sequence.
Note that some circumstances allow bombardment to take place without an Invasion Combat also taking place.

Capacity (n)

Units with this ability can carry up to n units with the cargo or space cargo trait (see below for the list of these units). Carried units are referred to as the cargo of the unit carrying them.
When a unit with this ability is destroyed, the units it carries are destroyed too.
There are variants of this ability, that limit the types of units that can be carried. For example, a unit with “Capacity (3 Fighters)” can only carry up to 3 Fighters.

When a unit with this ability starts its movement, or enters a System, it may, if the System is unactivated or is the destination System of the movement, pick up carry-able units from:

In addition, units with this ability in the destination system may freely transfer carried units between them.

Carry-able units:

Capture Installations

When a player takes control of a planet while having a unit with this ability on it, she may capture all installations on it.
Captured Space Docks are exhausted.

Commando

Before the first combat round of an Invasion Combat, the attacker may assign some of her units with this ability as Commando. These units do not participate in combat rounds, and are destroyed by the defender if the attacker loses the Invasion Combat. If she wins, each Commando unit can capture an enemy installation on the planet.
Captured Space Docks are exhausted.

Deep Space Cannon (n)

This ability is the combination of the Space Cannon (n) ability with the bonus that it has range to adjacent systems (but cannot fire through wormholes).

Deploy Space Mines (n)

During the Production step of a Tactical Action, the active player may deploy a number of Space Mines in the just activated System up to the number of Deploy Space Mines abilities her units in the System have (in most cases, Space Mines will be deployed by Cruisers, each of them being able to deploy 2). Each Space Mine costs 2 resources and must be placed on one of the edges of the System. Place a flag of the active player on each Space Mine built to indicate their ownership.

Invasion Defence (n)

Units with this ability perform n Combat Rolls against attacking ground units during the Pre-Combat step of an Invasion Combat on their planet.

Planetary Shield (n)

When a planet containing a unit (controlled by the controller of the planet) with this ability is bombarded, n bombardment hits are cancelled.

Pre-Combat Shot (n)

Units with this ability perform n Combat Rolls during the Other Pre-Combat effects step of the Space Battle sequence.

Produce Units (n)

See the Production step of a Tactical Action.

Shock Troop Upgrade

After a player wins an Invasion Combat Invasion Combat as the attacker and takes control of the planet, one of her surviving units with this ability on the planet may be replaced with a Shock Troop.

Space Cannon (n)

Units with this ability can shoot at ships in their system during the Space Cannon Abilities step of Tactical Actions. Look at the description of this step for more details.

Sustain Damage (n)

A unit with this ability may be assigned more than one hit during Space Battles and Invasion Combats. It may be assigned a total of n hits without being destroyed, and is destroyed if one more hit is assigned to it. For each hit sustained this way, a unit loses a combat dice (up to a minimum of one die) and rolls one less die when bombarding (up to a minimum of one die) until it is repaired, which usually happens during the Status Phase. Dice losses due to this ability are applied after other game effects granting/removing dice. Hit Counters (see next picture) can be used to represent the damages sustained.

HitCounter

Leaders

Each race starts the game with 3 Leaders, great personalities with powerful abilities. There are 5 types of Leaders, each with their own set of abilities.

General Leader Rules

This section explains the general rules that apply to all Leaders.

Movement

Fate Roll

When a ship carrying a Leader is destroyed, or when a Leader is present on a non-friendly planet without accompanying friendly ground units, remove that Leader from the board. At the end of the current action, conduct a Fate Roll (roll a D10 and look at the following table) to determine its new location.

Fate Roll Table:
Killed:
When Killed, the Leader is removed from the game entirely.

Captured:
When Captured, the Leader becomes a captive, and the captor places one of her flags on the captive to denote this. A captive is considered as a Leader with no abilities, and may only be moved by the captor (as if it was one of her own Leaders). A captive that would be Captured by its original owner Escapes instead.

Escape:
Upon Escape, the original owner of the Leader may place it back in play at any of her planets or ship. A captive that Escapes stops being a captive and regain its abilities.

Executions and Releases

During the Status Phase, captives may be released or executed by their captor. The released captives Escape, while the executed captives are Killed. The captor must then exhaust or lose control of a planet for each captive she executed

Leader Abilities

Note: Leader abilities with an * do not stack between multiple Leaders of the same type. For example, your ground units fighting with two Generals only receive +1 to their combat rolls, not +2.

Admiral

Diplomat

General

Agent

Scientist

Surrender and Elimination

Sometimes a player does not want to (surrender) or cannot (elimination) continue playing. This section explains how to deal with these situations. Additionally, the armistice procedure provides a way to amicably settle a game without playing it out to the end.

Surrender

When passing during the Action Phase, a player who wish to stop playing may surrender to leave the game. After this happens, the surrendering player may not act in the game anymore and her next Status Phase is skipped (she can leave the table). Follow this procedure at the end of the round:

  1. Victory Point penalty: The surrendering player loses 2 Victory Points. This penalty does not stack with the one from the non-control of all the planets in the Home System.
  2. Identify the Capital Planet:
    At each of these substeps, ties are broken in favour of the planet with the highest resource value worth of ground units and PDS on it, and in case there is still a tie, by choosing one at random
    1. If she controls at least one planet with a Space Dock in her Home System, the one with the highest combined resource and influence is the capital planet.
    2. Else, if she controls at least one planet with a Space Dock, the one with the highest combined resource and influence is the capital planet.
    3. Else, the planet with the highest combined resource and influence is the capital planet.
  3. Garrison the Capital Planet:
    The surrendering player receives Ground Forces on the capital planet until either 3 Ground Forces were added or there are at least 5 ground units.
  4. Remove all Space Docks, except the one on the capital planet (if any)
  5. Remove the Flagship (if it is on the board)
  6. Remove all Leaders, except the captives
    In the rest of the game, if one of these captives would escape, it is removed from the game instead.
  7. Bidding on the fleets and planets of the surrendering player:
    Starting with the Speaker and following the Rotation Cycler (ignoring the surrendering player), each player will choose a fleet or planet (except the capital planet) of the surrendering player that will be bid upon.

    After a fleet or planet has been chosen, starting with the player that chose and following the Rotation Cycler (again, ignoring the surrendering player), each player may either place a bid of influence or withdraw from this bidding. Repeat this until only one player has not withdrawn: this player wins this bidding. The winner of a bidding must spend as many influence as her bid, and takes control of the fleet or planet (including the units on it, but exhausted) that was bid upon.
    Note that the player that chose must place a bid on her first turn (but she can bid 0), and that no player may place a bid she could not afford to pay later. Also, as an exception to the Fleet Supply rule, players are allowed to take control via this process of a fleet that would put them in violation of their Fleet Supply (they still have to destroy ships to comply with Flet Supply afterwards).

    Repeat this process until all the fleets and planets (except the capital planet) of the surrendering player have been attributed to other players.

  8. Elimination:
    Finally, the surrendering player is eliminated (follow the elimination procedure), with the exception that the Trade Agreements she had with other players stay open until the capital planet is lost (or until her trade partners perform Hostile Acts against the capital planet).

Note: The capital planet and its units (until they are taken over or destroyed) are to be considered by the remaining players as belonging to an opponent that has the same technologies, racial abilities and racial upgrades the surrendering player had. They systematically use any effects they have to, but none that are optional, except the Space Cannon ability which they use whenever they can.

Elimination

If at the end of an action or during the Status Phase, a player does not control any planet or unit, she is eliminated:

  1. All her Action Cards, Political Cards, Trade Goods and Command Counters are discarded. Her Secret Objective(s) in hand are not discarded and stay secret.
  2. Trade Agreements opened with her are broken and may never be re-opened.
  3. If she was the Speaker, the next player in the Rotation Cycler order becomes the Speaker.
  4. If she had a Strategy Card, she immediately returns it, even if it was not played yet.
  5. She is ignored by all effects
  6. The game now has one fewer players, so some rules adjustments based on the number of players may come into play. See the section dedicated to these rules.

Note: The Home System of an eliminated player is still considered as the Home System of an opponent by the remaining players. This means in particular that objectives requiring to control planets in an opponent’s Home System can be claimed with the Home System of an eliminated player.

Armistice (Experimental)

It may happen that a player is almost guaranteed to win, and that other players do not see a way to stop her, but the game would still technically require to be played out. When this happens, the following rule can be used to cut the game short. It simulates an amicable settlement of the end game.

At any point during the game, if all players agree, you can follow these steps to end the game immediately. All players must agree on all decisions made during this procedure for the armistice to be valid.

  1. Choose a player to be the winner of the game. She is awarded enough Victory Points to reach the Victory Point goal.
  2. The winner can award Victory Points to any remaining players, up to a total amount of awarded Victory Points equal to the number of players.
  3. The remaining players may cede Victory Points to each other.
  4. If all players agree on the final result, the game is over. If no agreement can be reached, it continues as normal.

The maximum number of Victory Points any non-winning player can have is 2 Victory Points less than the winner.

Miscellaneous Rules

General Definitions

Rule Adjustments Based On The Number Of Players

8 players

7 players

5 players

4 players

3 players

2 players

Strategy and Status Phase

Trade

Assembly

Objectives

Action Cards and Political Cards

Race-specific changes

Annex 1: Effects of Domain Counters

For the general rules regarding Domain Counters, see the Domain Counter section.

Note: All units created by Domain Counters are treated as regular units for all intents and purposes.

         
DS_PeacefulAnnexation Peaceful Annexation
The local civilization accepts the annexation into your galactic empire.

Discard this counter.
FF_VoidSpace Void Space
Your ships travel deep into space, silently passing thousands of dead and empty planets. No unusual event occur.

Discard this counter.
DS_HiddenFactory Hidden Factory
Your exploratory units have unearthed an ancient, abandoned starship factory.

You may produce ships for up to two production capacity in the system. One of the resources spent comes for free.
DS_NativeIntelligence Native Intelligence
The local civilization offers their allegiance and share their research about distant stars.

Secretly look at any face down Domain Counter on the board.
FF_AbandonnedFreighters Abandoned Freighters
An abandoned fleet of freighters drift in dead space, with cargo intact. The whereabouts of the crew remains a mystery.

Receive 2 Trade Goods.
FF_UnchartedHabitats Uncharted Habitats
Amidst the dark between the stars you discover an advanced, self sustaining society previously not earlier registered in galactic records.

Leave this counter in the system. It is treated as a Trade Station of 0 resource and 1 influence (no refresh ability). Take a Colony card to represent this habitat. It is not considered as a planet or a Trade Station for Objectives.
FF_ShipGraveyard Ship Graveyard
Remnants of a once great battle rests solemnly in space. Some of the ships may be repaired or looted for fuel and supplies.

Produce one ship in the system for half its resource cost (round down) or receive one Command Counter in your Fleet Supply. This ship may not be a War Sun or a Flagship.
FF_Discovery Discovery
The venture through uncharted space has provided you with advantageous discoveries.

Gain one Action Card or one Command Counter.
DS_NaturalWealth Natural Wealth
The planet is rich on ore, gas, vegetation and other natural resources that can be extracted relatively easily.

Place the indicated number of Trade Goods on the planet, that will work as Natural Wealth: if they control the planet, players may take one at the end of their Tactical Actions in the system and during the Refresh Planet step of the Status Phase.
Natural Wealth Trade Goods at the same location but from multiple sources are merged into a single stack.
DS_IndustrialSociety Industrial Society
An industrious and friendly populace welcomes your empire. With your help, they will soon be able to construct ships for interstellar travel.

Receive a free (exhausted) Space Dock on this planet.
If you are the Saar, gain 2 Trade Goods instead.
DS_TechnologicalLegacy Technological Legacy
The populace of this planet harbours relics and remnants of ancient Lazax technology.

Receive one technology for which you have the needed pre-requisites, chosen by the player on your left.
FF_AlienArtifact Alien Technology
Strange, alien technology are identified in the system. After careful research, it reveals marvellous technological secrets your scientists cannot fully reproduce.

Leave this counter face-up in place for the remainder of the game. It is no longer treated as a Domain Counter but is controlled as if it was an Artifact. Any player taking control of this counter may choose one Technology and utilize its effect as long as they maintain control of this counter.
DS_LazaxSurvivors Lazax Survivors
The signs of intelligent life you detected turned out to be the very descendants of the great Lazax themselves.

Leave this counter face-up in place for the remainder of the game. It is no longer treated as a Domain Counter but is controlled as if it was an Artifact. The player controlling this counter receives +3 votes.
DS_NeutronRadiation Neutron Radiation
The entire landing force is exposed to an intense pulsation of ionizing radiation. No survivors are reported.

Place this counter on the planet’s card. It is no longer a Domain Counter. When a planet whose card contains Neutron Radiation counters would get refreshed, cancel that refresh and remove one counter from it instead.
DS_Settlers Settlers
Pioneers from one of the Great Races have already settled on the planet.

Roll a die to determine a random opponent, who places two Ground Forces on the planet and claim it. The active player may cancel her landing on this planet (this also cancels bombardment). Units/Leaders unable to go back to where they came from are destroyed/make Fate Rolls.
FF_GravityRift Warp Gyre
A turbulence phenomenon projects your fleet farther than intended.

If able, move all your ships from this system to an adjacent unactivated non-Home System containing no enemy ships and activate it from reinforcement.
If this happens during your Tactical Action, continue it in that system. You may ignore this effect if you have the Maneuvering Jets technology.
DS_WormholeDiscovery Wormhole Discovery
Investigating an anomaly in the sector reveals unexpected wormhole activity.

Leave this counter in the system. Treat the system as having an unstable wormhole of the indicated type.
FF_SpacePirates Space Pirates
Ruthless vagabond roam the galaxy to prey on the wealthy and the weak.

Choose either:
- Pay 2 Trade Goods and remove this counter.
- Spawn a neutral Dreadnought in the system for this action. When the action ends, if no player has units where this counter was, place it back. Otherwise, this player gains 2 Trade Goods.
DS_FighterAmbush Fighter Ambush
Sensors detect a myriad of small, unidentified ships approaching at high velocity.

Spawn the indicated number of neutral Fighters in the system for this action. When the action ends, if no player has units where this counter was, place it back.
FF_SuddenCollision Sudden Collision
In the dead of space, unidentified objects slam into the hull and cargo area of your ships.

Inflict a hit on one of your ships in the system or lose one unit carried by one of them. If you have the Antimass Deflectors technology, ignore this effect.
DS_BioHazard Bio-Hazard
While attempting to terraform the planet, millions perish due to influence highly aggravating toxins.

Inflict one hit on the landing army. If no ground units remain to claim the planet, leave this counter in place.
DS_HostileLocals Hostile Locals
All forms of Diplomacy with the local civilization have failed.

Spawn the indicated number of neutral Ground Forces on this planet for this action. When the action ends, if no player has units where this counter was, place it back.
DS_AutomatedDefence Automated Defence
Powerful laser beams soar through the atmosphere of the planet and cut into the hull of your ships.

Spawn 2 neutral PDSs on this planet for this action. They immediately fire (using Space Cannon) once each at any player fleet in the system. These PDSs cannot be captured. When the action ends, if no player has units where this counter was, place it back. Otherwise, this player gains a PDS there.
DS_HostilesAndNaturalWealth Hostiles and Natural Wealth
The planet is abundant with natural resources, but the local populace will defend it at all costs.

Roll one die and divide the result by two (round up). Replace this counter with both a Hostile Locals and a Natural Wealth Domain Counter of this value.

Annex 2: Variants and Optional Rules

Content:

Covert Objectives (complete version, beta)

Description
The Covert Objective Mod is an in-development mod that adds a new type of objectives (Covert Objectives) as light Secret Objectives, focused on agression. These objectives are acquired through a variant of the Bureaucracy Strategy Card. This mod uses an alternative Public Objective deck with much more peaceful objectives, and the injection of these into the game is now done through Assembly.

The main idea of this mod was to reduce the amount of dealing that was happening when an agressive public objective was drawn (like: “I’ll let a Ground Force on this planet for you to claim this objective against me if you do …”), as well as reducing the intuitive turtling reaction that would follow the revelation of objectives like “Destroy an enemy Space Dock”. So with this mod, aggressive objectives should hopefully be claimed in an actual aggressive fashion and encourage a more dynamic and proactive behaviour.

Setup (All the assets are available on the Shattered Ascension website)

Rules

Generalities

Covert Objectives (light version, beta)

Description
This is an attempt at providing a lighter implementation of the complete Covert Objectives variant.

Setup

Rules

Path of Fate (Race Specific Objectives)

Each player is dealt her three Race-Specific Objective cards. Only one of these can be scored during each game (during the Objectives step of the Status Phase), but cannot be scored simultaneously with a Secret Objective.

Simultaneous Tactical Action System

The Simultaneous Tactical Action System is an optional rule allowing players to perform Simultaneous Tactical Actions when they could otherwise perform Tactical or Strategic Actions.

Simultaneous Tactical Action sequence:

  1. Activate as many systems as desired. However, activating a system that does not contain friendly ships or Space Docks costs 2 Command Counters instead of 1.
  2. Conduct the rest of the Tactical Action Sequence in each activated system, completing each step in all systems before proceeding to the next step. For each step, the active player chooses in which order the activated systems conduct that step.

Note: During a Simultaneous Tactical Action, all ships present in systems activated during this action may move out of them, regardless of the order in which these systems conduct the movement step. Similarly, units may be picked up from all of these systems.

Ascendancy

Todo

Star by Star

Todo